AFGHANISTAN

Starting with the 2001 invasion, the US war in Afghanistan is now 16 years in: as President Trump pointed out in last night’s speech, the longest war in American history. Even President Trump thought this was excessively long, admitting that “my original instinct was to pull out.”

But the US isn’t pulling out. Instead, President Trump recommitted the US to a new round of escalation with no concrete end conditions, and formally disavowed a “time-based” approach. He added that he doesn’t think the US should publicly announce the dates for ending their “military options.”

The reality behind this rhetoric, though, is that once again any pretense of the Afghan War ending is out the window, and the seemingly endless war again has no end in sight. Trump has laid the ground for reckless new escalations, and in presenting 9/11 and the Iraq withdrawal as justification, is committed to staying.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am profoundly disappointed in President Trump's decision to continue this horrific,wasteful conflict, but apparently, his "president whisperers", Kelly, Mattis, and Mc Masters, have somehow convinced him that this is, in spite of all the blood and money spent, "winnable", 16 years on.

Of course, there is the billion dollar opium poppy trade to be supported by the US military for various US alphabet soup agencies for programs over which Congress has utterly no oversight:

And there is, of course, that embarrassment of riches from Afghan minerals (if only we could get the Afghanis "pacified enough" to mine them, which will, allegedly pay for the continued US/NATO occupation in this country);

How in the name of heaven President Trump and Mc Master, Kelly, and Mattis believe they can change the course of this horrific war is absolutely beyond me; I think this coming surge in troop strength had more to do with the fear of not wanting to say we've lost this than a concrete, workable plan to win this war, because history has shown that everything we've done in Afghanistan to date has not worked.

With President Donald Trump’s new strategy, America’s longest-ever war promises to stretch on indefinitely, despite pledges by previous administrations and by Trump himself to withdraw from Afghanistan.

The European Union approved on Monday an aid package to Afghanistan worth 100 million euros ($118 million) under a State Building Contract (SBC) signed with the Afghan government to support implementation of key reforms aimed at ensuring macroeconomic stability, improving public financial management, state budget transparency and development policies, Delegation of the European Union to Afghanistan said in a statement.

In an extended tweetstorm conccurrent with Trump's Monday night Afghanistan address, Ron Paul lashed out at the president, saying that at long last, Trump's neo-con nature had emerged. "Steve Bannon brakes removed. Neocons feeling their oats" and urging the public to "Beware! @LindseyGrahamSC loves Trump's speech! Why are arch-neocons celebrating so much? Very telling!." It appears that Paul's assessment of Trump's new strategy was not far off, because as the Hill reports today, the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party applauded President Trump’s troop surge in Afghanistan, even as members of the president’s base accused him of capitulating to the national security establishment.

The Taliban have announced that it will be no easy task for the United States to continue occupying Afghanistan after President Donald Trump reneged on his promise to withdraw from the country.

"If America doesn't withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, soon Afghanistan will become another graveyard for this superpower in the 21st century," Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday.

He then urged for the US to prepare for a withdrawal from the country "instead of continuing the war" on Afghanistan, the longest-running war in US history.

"As long as there is one US soldier in our land, and they continue to impose war on us," we will continue our insurgency, Mujahid emphasised.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,And the women come out to cut up what remains,Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier." -- Kipling

If one moment stands out as the clearest signal yet of US President Trump turning his back on supporters, it was his announcement this week to re-escalate American military intervention in Afghanistan.

DID YOU KNOW that shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban tried to surrender?

For centuries in Afghanistan, when a rival force had come to power, the defeated one would put down their weapons and be integrated into the new power structure — obviously with much less power, or none at all. That’s how you do with neighbors you have to continue to live with. This isn’t a football game, where the teams go to different cities when it’s over. That may be hard for us to remember, because the U.S. hasn’t fought a protracted war on its own soil since the Civil War.

So when the Taliban came to surrender, the U.S. turned them down repeatedly, in a series of arrogant blunders spelled out in Anand Gopal’s investigative treatment of the Afghanistan war, “No Good Men Among the Living.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

In the immortal words of the American comedian Ron White, "You can't fix stupid"; and there was an incredible, monumental amount of stupid going on in the Bush administration, leading to far more blood and money lost in Afghanistan than there had to be.

On Tuesday, Lt. Col. Michael Waltz told Fox News anchor Bret Bayer that he is “proud of our president” in regards to Donald Trump’s recent announcements on the deployment of 4000 troops to Afghanistan and said that we are not going to see any “nation building” over there anytime soon.

Listening to President Trump’s speech Monday night on Afghanistan, it was pretty easy to figure out how his military advisors had convinced him to endorse what is essentially a continuation of the policy he inherited from Barack Obama: using U.S. troops to train and advise Afghan security forces and engage in counter-terrorism operations, while pressing Pakistan to stop providing a haven for the Taliban and other insurgents.

The key was to package a policy largely characterized by continuity as a dramatic departure from the approach followed by Obama. Thus Trump told the nation that U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Asia “will change dramatically.”

(Ironically, he failed to mention the most significant departure from Obama’s legacy: Trump’s approval of the Pentagon’s request to dispatch a few thousand more U.S. military personnel to Afghanistan. That information was communicated to the press and Congress off-camera by administration officials.)

President Trump will unveil his new strategy for Afghanistan tonight. Will he do the sensible thing and end the failed longest war in history? Or will he continue doing the same thing and expect that somehow he will “win” the war? Does he even know what “winning” looks like? Today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report is joined by Future of Freedom Foundation president Jacob Hornberger to preview what the president may say…and why:

In his Monday night speech on the Afghan War, President Trump committed the US to an essentially open-ended escalation of the conflict without any specific limitations, while granting commanders broader authority to unilaterally target “the enemy.”

Like professional LIAR Bill Kristol said, the Deep State is winning. The Poppy Fields are safe, thank G-d, the European False Flags helped convince Trump to keep killing Afghans for years to come. And added bonus is now we're going to be bombing Pakistan, since Syria is kinda off limits. At least West of the Euphrates River.

Goldman Government Sachs knows the Xmas bonuses this year will be extra big, since the Afghanistan opium output will keep soaring. Just thinking of all those hundreds of billions to be laundered by TBTF Wall Street banks and protected by the USG!

The Taliban warned the U.S. that they would make Afghanistan a "graveyard for the American empire" after President Donald Trump's announcement that he would commit more troops to the country.

The radical Islamist group, who are waging a bloody insurgency against the Afghan government and its security forces, said they would continue "jihad" until all U.S. troops were removed from Afghan soil.

"If the U.S. does not pull all its forces out of Afghanistan, we will make this country the 21st-century graveyard for the American empire," the Taliban's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said in a statement.

This evening Trump will announce a new "path forward" in the occupation of Afghanistan. According to the usual leaks it will be very same path the U.S. has taken for 16 years.

Several thousands soldiers from the U.S. and various NATO countries will (in vane) train the Afghan army. Special Forces and CIA goons will raid this or that family compound on someone's say-so. Bombs will be dropped on whatever is considered a target.

Trump will announce that 1,000 or so troops will be added to the current contingent. About 15,000 foreign troops will be in Afghanistan. About three contractors per each soldier will be additionally deployed.

Trump knows that this "path forward" is nonsense that leads nowhere, that the best option for all foreign troops in Afghanistan is to simply leave:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 21 Nov 2013
We have wasted an enormous amount of blood and treasure in Afghanistan. Their government has zero appreciation. Let's get out!

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am deeply disappointed in President Trump's decision here.

He knows better; he understands that this new "surge" will be absolutely no different than all the surges before this in the last 16 years.

And in this decision, he has failed the American people in a spectacular fashion, and has guaranteed much more blood and money will be lost.

His military advisors, that unholy trinity of Mc Masters, Mattis, and Kelly, have betrayed him, in the name of "optics"; in their dystopian view, that another US war cannot be viewed as "lost" is more important than doing the right thing for the American people, which would be to withdraw US and NATO troops as quickly as safely possible, then negotiatewith whatever government is left standing in Kabul for the oil pipeline and mineral rights.

That Sec Def Mattis signed off on this just puzzles me intensely; I know that this man is absolutely lionized by every military person who has served under his command, but to tell the President that this is his only, highest and best, option in Afghanistan?!?

Vocal supporters of President Donald Trump on the far right slammed his decision to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan and ramp up engagement in the US’s longest war.

Many of the president’s longtime boosters criticised his about-face on Afghanistan, a war he repeatedly pilloried in the years leading up to the 2016 election.

Breitbart News, the site led by recently ousted White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, had a front page Monday evening full of stories lambasting Trump’s decision, referring to it as “unlimited war,” and comparing his strategy to that of President Barack Obama. Its top story described the speech as a “disappointment to many who had supported his calls during the campaign to end expensive foreign intervention and nation-building.”

Germany will not immediately send more troops to Afghanistan in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's request for more backing as it increased its presence last year at a time when others were cutting, the defence minister said.

Ursula von der Leyen welcomed Trump's commitment to continuing the U.S. mission, but said Germany would not be among the first nations to contribute more.

"We increased our troop numbers by 18 percent last year when others were cutting theirs," she said during a visit to a submarine base in north Germany on Tuesday.

"So we don't see ourselves in the front row of people who should be asked for more soldiers."

In his Aug. 17 op-ed, “Preventing a terrorist victory in Afghanistan,” Stephen J. Hadley declared that President Trump’s main goal in Afghanistan should be to “test” the Taliban’s interest in peace. Mr. Hadley suggested without explanation that insurgents and terrorists can be defeated in Afghanistan, just as the Islamic State was pushed out of Iraq, with a “modest increase” in U.S. forces.

While he was right that it is a vital national interest to prevent terrorist attacks against the U.S. homeland, he was widely off the mark to imply that securing the territory of Afghanistan is necessary to produce that outcome.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Trump's "new" Afghanistan strategy is a repeat of George B. Bush's "surge", which didn't work.

I think the real agenda here is the US Government simply not wanting to look like it is losing in Afghanistan, no matter what it costs in blood or cash.

Donald Trump is expected to announce his long-overdue military strategy for Afghanistan Monday evening according to the White House. Trump made a decision after a “sufficiently rigorous” review process, defense secretary Jim Mattis confirmed.

Today, shortly after admitting that the war in Afghanistan is being lost, US President Trump is wrapping up a strategy session with his top military and political advisers at Camp David to decide the strategy to turn the situation round. Present will be the entire foreign policy team which following the recent purges of top officials is slowly shaping up as the definitive foreign policy team of the Trump administration: Generals Kelly, McMaster and Mattis, Secretary of State Tillerson, and the heads of the US intelligence community, DNI director Dan Coats and CIA chief Mike Pompeo. These people are all without exception conservative establishment figures, and with the sole possible exception of Secretary of State Tillerson – who has shown a certain independence of mind on some issues – their approach to questions of war and peace can be summed up with the words: more of the same.

A new strategy of the United States for Afghanistan affects China’s interests in the region, a leading expert from the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies said on Monday. "New scenarios of the US strategy in Afghanistan affect the interests of China. Over the recent time, the administration of (President Donald) Trump has been way too active in initiating hotbeds of tension close to the Chinese borders: in North Korea, and now in Afghanistan," said Adzhar Kurtov, who is also editor-in-chief of the Problemy Natsionalnoy Strategii (National Strategy Issues) magazine. "Behind all these bright-eyed statements about a certain new strategy in Afghanistan is a trivial position - to remove a rival or weaken him. Nowadays, the People’s Republic of China is the main rival of the US on the global arena," Adzhar Kurtov said. He pointed to Beijing’s "serious plans for cooperation with Afghanistan, including in the economic sector.

The two “specialized” in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, in which hackers use networks to overload and overwhelm online sites, basically inundating them with requests for connections, as a result overloading and freezing them. Investigators said that the two were responsible for no fewer than 2 million such attacks, costing their victims — corporations and government sites around the world — millions of dollars.

Trump is in a bind. As Taliban forces continue to rack up military and political gains across their country, no serious expert can possibly believe that continued U.S. intervention will deliver “victory.” Sixteen years of experience show that almost every U.S. tactic has not only failed, but backfired.

Far from winning hearts and minds, nighttime Special Forces raids and bombing runs have turned countless villagers against the Afghan government and its foreign backers. Far from bolstering Kabul’s resources, tens of billions of dollars in U.S. aid created an epidemic of corruption that decimated the government’s credibility and put money and weapons in the hands of the Taliban.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am waiting for President Trump's speech to the nation regarding Afghanistan; and I am waiting for him to announce a "surge" in troops (yet again), as the US government and military have done so many times before, in this 16 year war.

I am waiting to be disappointed yet again with this alleged "new strategy" in Afghanistan, which cannot be more than a complete rehash and recombinations of older, failed strategies, wrapped with "new packaging, yet incapable of really fixing the situation.

And I know, as surely as I am sitting and typing this, that this surge is not about training Afghani forces to fight on their own; and this surge is not about giving the Afghani people the "gifts of freedom and democracy".

This surge is all about controlling Afghanistan's pipelines; controlling Afghanistan's vast mineral wealth; and controlling its opium poppy production, which funds various US "alphabet soup" agencies' "off the shelf" operations upon which Congress has utterly zero oversight.

It is just that simple, folks; and nothing President Trump will say tonight will convince me otherwise, unless he is talking complete NATO and US drawdown, just as safely as it can be managed.

And I think that is as likely as pigs discovering their ability to fly.

While President Trump made public the fact that a decision on Afghan War policy was made during Friday’s Camp David meeting,his administration still hasn’t provided any specific information on what exactly that decision was, apparently saving that for a Monday night speech.

Friday’s Camp David talks on Afghanistan appear to have ended without a final decision by President Trump on troop levels, as he continues to resist pressure from top cabinet officials to sign off on a massive escalation of the 16-year-old conflict with thousands of fresh troops.

Trump had initially delegated the decision to Defense Secretary James Mattis, but Mattis found a cap limiting his maximum deployment too restrictive. Now, Vice President Pence and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster are also taking up the cause of large-scale escalation, pushing Trump to accept the recommendations of the commanders.

Pence and McMaster were at the Camp David meeting, but Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who has been pushing a “privatize the war” initiative, was blocked, apparently at the behest of McMaster. Trump aide Steve Bannon, another skeptic of military escalation, was sacked outright.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I would politely like to point out that doing the same thing, in precisely the same way, yet expecting a different outcome, is one of the classic definitions of insanity.

A large scale escalation of anything less than hundreds of thousands of US troops will not create a "win" in Afghanistan; and without the reintroduction of the draft (which may well happen on President Trump's watch), we simply do not have the troop strength to accommodate a huge escalation of troops here.

It is highly unfortunate that the only "President Whisperers" we have in the White House now are Kelly, Mattis, and Mc Master, because all will see war as the only possibility for moving forward, and they are completely, totally, wrong on this issue.

And please note Senator Graham's terrifying statement in the last paragraph:

"The ever-hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) appears also to be pushing the narrative that it’s impossible for the war not to continue to be escalated, arguing that the US would have “another 9/11” if they stopped occupying Afghanistan a mere generation after the last terrorist attack".

One American soldier was killed and a combined 20 US and Afghan troops wounded during operations against Islamic State in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, as a number of senior Pentagon officials visited the country.

Between Bannon's China trade war threats and fears over Cohn leaving, risk was off today, not helped by dismal Industrial Production data and the utter horror in Barcelona... Trannies were worst but this was an ugly say all around and losses accelerate into the close ahead of tomorrow's OPEX...

If you want to radically change the dynamic then you have to apply extreme pressure. I feel this is what Trump and his advisors are doing. They are appearing to “have the strength to force the moment to its crisis” to quote T.S. Eliot.

And that strength or purpose is creating large movements. Trump is a bully. It’s what he does, at least publicly. The response so far from China has been to denounce the idea of regime change in Pyongyang.

The response from Russia, through Foreign Minister (and top diplomat in the world right now), Sergei Lavrov was to announce a deal brokered between it, North Korea and China to get what Trump wants; no potential for nukes in North Korea.

"Russia together with China developed a plan which proposes 'double freezing': Kim Jong-un should freeze nuclear tests and stop launching any types of ballistic missiles, while US and South Korea should freeze large-scale drills which are used as a pretext for the North’s tests."

Worried by the Trump administration’s delay in announcing a military strategy for the war in Afghanistan, Sen. John McCain said Thursday he’ll try to force the debate on Capitol Hill, offering his own plan that would force a troop increase.

The Arizona Republican, who is also chairman of the Armed Services Committee, didn’t lay out a number in the legislation but said more American counterterrorism forces should be deployed, and given independent authority to strike targets of the Taliban, al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

Mr. McCain also said the U.S should secure a long-term agreement with Afghanistan for an “enduring” military presence there, and should begin to impose penalties on neighboring Pakistan as punishment for that country’s harboring of insurgents and terrorists.

His plan comes at a time when the Trump White House is divided by debate over what to do in the war-torn nation, which continues to backslide on a host of security yardsticks.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I would like to politely suggest to Senator Mc Cain, that to do the same thing, over and over, in precisely the same way, yet expecting a different outcome...is a classic definition of insanity.

For the last bloody 16 years, we have seen surges, followed by drawdowns,to absolutely no avail, in terms of getting less territory held by the Taliban. There is utterly no military metric by which you can characterise this war as having a "successful outcome".

So Senator Mc Cain, who never saw a US-instigated war he didn't like, there are some questions that come to mind, in terms of your great enthusiasm for pursuing countless wars, many times at an horrendous costs in blood and money, with lousy outcomes.

I have to wonder from what industries the extreme gap was filled between your annual salary and your net worth; would I be too far off the mark to say that the difference is made up either by personal investments in America's military/Industrial complex, or overt/covert contributions from these industries?!?

Those could, certainly, be your motivation for keeping a failed war in Afghanistan continuing.

To characterize congressional conduct regarding the Vietnam War as timorous and irresponsible is to be kind. There were individual exceptions, of course, among them Senator Morse who had opposed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and Senator Fulbright who by 1967 openly regretted his vote in favor and recognized Vietnam for the disaster it had become. Collectively, however, legislators failed abjectly.

Well, with the passage of a half century, here we are again, back in the soup (or perhaps more accurately, the sand). With the United States currently mired in the longest armed conflict in the nation’s history—considerably longer than Vietnam—Senator Lausche’s proposal of 1967 just might merit a fresh look.

Webmaster's Commentary:

What President Trump and NATO should do, is remove their troops as quickly as it is safely possible from Afghanistan, then negotiate with whatever government is left standing in Kabul for the oil pipeline and mineral rights; of course, that...would be logical.

President Trump inherited this excrement sandwich; Afghanistan is not his fault.

But he should end this horrific war, which has cost the US and NATO dearly in blood and money.

As President Donald Trump vents his frustration with the United States' "losing" strategy in Afghanistan, the "notorious mercenary" and Blackwater founder Erik Prince has seized the moment to offer his favored alternative: privatize the war.

The plan, this literal colonialism, would be very similar to Blackwater’s approach in Iraq, where the private contractors had significant influence on US policy. It will potentially open the door to deadly abuses and murders by unaccountable forces, like those seen in Iraq.

Ronald Neumann, who served as the US Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, has echoed these concerns in an interview with mainstream media: "There's a bad record of contractors and human rights abuses. There's no legal structure to govern this."

United States House of Representatives Member Walter Jones (R-NC) has for years ardently advocated terminating US involvement in the Afghanistan War. Jones’ efforts in this regard include his legislation introduced in the House, letters to US presidents and congressional leaders, interviews, and House floor speeches.

As President Donald Trump vents his frustration with the United States' "losing" strategy in Afghanistan, the "notorious mercenary" and Blackwater founder Erik Prince has seized the moment to offer his favored alternative: privatize the war.

"A private air force and a bombing app! From the people who brought you Blackwater; an even more disturbing idea."
—Cal Perry, NBC News

According to a report by Katrina Manson of the Financial Times on Monday, Prince has drafted a proposal—dated August 2017—that would hand the longest war in American history over to a private "band of experienced sergeants," who would fight alongside U.S.-trained Afghan forces.

Prince, Manson writes, "proposes a two-year plan for fewer than 5,000 global guns for hire and under 100 aircraft, bringing the total cost of the U.S. effort to turn round a failing war to less than $10 billion a year."

Webmaster's Commentary:

President Trump, a word, please: this excrement sandwich that is the Afghanistan war, is absolutely not your fault; you inherited this from the Bushbama administrations.

From the beginning, without committing far more troops than Bush or Obama would ultimately be willing to commit, this war was unwinnable from the get-go.

There is utterly no military metric by which this US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan can be considered a "success", unless you want to define "success" as the huge heroin crop which funds various "off the shelf" activities of various US "alphabet soup agencies, over which Congress does not have oversight:

And 16 years on, we are still in Afghanistan, because the Pentagon is pathologically incapable of figuring out how to win this, and because the various alphabet soup agencies are thoroughly addicted to that money from the poppy production.

So, what is to be done?!?

First, reject Prince's plan as though it were the plague.

Secondly, get our American and NATO troops out of Afghanistan as quickly as is safely possible, then negotiate with whatever government is left standing in Kabul for the pipeline and mineral rights.

An Army court will decide this week whether to review and perhaps reduce the life sentence of a soldier who massacred Afghan civilians — and in the process it will judge a controversial malaria drug given to troops that is known to cause hallucinations, anxiety and paranoia.

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, left, is shown during an exercise at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, August 23, 2011. Bales is suspected of shooting, stabbing and burning sleeping villagers in a horrific attack that has sparked fury across Afghanistan. Bales is suspected of shooting, stabbing and burning sleeping villagers in a horrific attack that has sparked fury across Afghanistan.

Attorneys for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the serviceman convicted in 2013 of killing 16 Afghans in the worst U.S. military massacre since Vietnam, are expected to raise the soldier’s use of mefloquine, also known by the brand name Lariam, before or during his deployment.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Hey, as long as the drug manufacturers are making money, no one inside Big Pharma gives a damn about potential side effects which could cause a patient taking that drug, to go absolutely psychotic.

This happened to both Australian and Canadian Vets, forced to take this medication:

Caught between the Taliban, Islamic State and US airstrikes, Afghan civilians have been forced to flee their homes to the outskirts of Jalalabad, where they found refuge inside an unfinished university building.

Around 1,500 internally displaced people (IDPs), including hundreds of women and children, are reportedly seeking refuge in the area, many of them from the Achin and Haska Meyna districts in the Nangarhar Province of southern Afghanistan. They have fled the fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban, as well as the atrocities of other terrorist groups.

“Islamic State militants slaughtered our uncle, saying he was a spy, so we left our homes as they said the next day they will also kill us,” a Pashto-speaking man from Haska Meyna told RT’s Ruptly film crew.

The president has many faults and is a lousy judge of character. But he was absolutely right to read the riot act to the military brass for daring to ask for a very large troop and budget increase for the stalemated Afghan War that has cost $1 trillion to date.

Of course, the unfortunate generals are not really to blame. They have been forced by the last three presidents to fight a pointless war at the top of the world that lacks any strategy, reason or purpose – and with limited forces. But they can’t admit defeat by lightly-armed Muslim tribesmen.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Mr. President, a word, please: you are not responsible for that excrement sandwich, known as the US/NATO failing occupation of Afghanistan; you inherited that from the Bushbama presidencies.

The most intelligent, and rational, thing you and the director of NATO can do at this point, is to get US/NATO troops out of Afghanistan as quickly as is safely possible, then negotiate with whatever government is left in Kabul for the pipeline and mineral rights.

After all the blood and money spent, this is truly the best, and in fact, only sane option here.

Clearly frustrated by the Pentagon’s ineffective strategies, Donald Trump has vowed to fire some of his top generals and aggressively gain ground in Afghanistan. But will the US president be able to prevail in a 16-year war where his two predecessors failed?

Dragging on longer than the Vietnam and Iraq campaigns, Afghanistan is becoming yet another swamp Trump wants to drain in keeping with his colorful election campaign. George W. Bush presided over the two post-9/11 military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and Barack Obama promised to end them – but the everlasting Afghan war relentlessly rolls on.

During a high-profile situation room meeting in July, Trump reportedly told his national security team it's time for a rapid breakthrough in Afghanistan.

“We are not winning,” he said, as cited in an NBC report. “We are losing.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

Mr.President, a word please; and right now, what you really need to realise here is that those who do not understand the past are doomed to repeat it, and no where is that more critically true than with the current state of affairs in Afghanistan.

You need to begin to educate yourself on why George Bush invaded Afghanistan in the first place, and no, it had absolutely nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. The following article may shed some light for you:

Bush invaded Afghanistan to control the pipelines there, and attempt to control all the pipelines in Central Asia and ultimately through the entire Middle East.

He went in with far too troops, betting on weapons of mass destruction to "neutralize" the Afghanis, but yet for all the physical and psychological damage these weapons produced, they never really did the job. As reported at zerohedge.com:

The Kabul-based Killid Group ventured into villages where MOAB-hit people had a ton of words to utter. A resident of Asad Khil village, Ghazeer, said that the bomb has born health hazards. He told Killid group:

“My Children are scared to sleep at night. Our skin is itching; small spots have appeared on the bodies of all people here. Our throats hurt. We are scared”

Another interviewee from the same village, Noor Bibi told the media group that the fierce explosion has almost blinded her. She acknowledges that:

“The bomb turned people blind and deaf. I can’t see anything, my skin is itching, my four grandchildren have chest problems and they also complain about their eyes.
”
In 2001, a day after the US soldiers first set foot in Afghanistan and captured Bagram airbase, it aerially attacked the final Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in notorious Tora Bora district in eastern Afghanistan. The air campaign continued until December 6 so intensely that a missile would land every two minute. It incurred great human fatalities and extensive financial loss. According to history records, the explosions would produce ear-splitting sound that caused ear-bleeding in many districts.

Sometime later, investigations found that the US had used short-range nuclear missiles. It left behind scores of creepy instances such as a drop in animal breeding in the area, a dramatic fall in agricultural products, and a few goats gave birth to defective babies.

Some British media reported that radioactive materials have also been observed in the area. Following the US bombings in many southern provinces, several babies were born eerily unlike normal humans, which doctors associated with the existence of radioactive material.

Mr. President, the excrement sandwich with which you are left in Afghanistan was absolutely not your fault; my sense is, you never would have personally ordered the invasion of this country, and would have continued on the path of negotiation with the Taliban to secure the pipeline rights.

The cost in American blood, and American money, 16 years on, has been staggering.

If military planners are brutally honest with you, they will inform you that it will take hundreds of thousands of troops to create a military victory here.

We just don't have those numbers, sir, with our other military deployments and commitments around the world: and that is the unequivocal truth, if you are looking at a military victory as "the only way" with which to achieve the US government's goals here in Afghanistan, the US military will have to scale back many of our other defense commitments.

But perhaps, is there another way to achieve the US government's goals?!?

And the answer is, yes, absolutely!!

What the US and NATO should do, is to withdraw their troops as quickly as is safely possible, then negotiate with whatever government is left standing in Kabul for the pipeline and mineral rights.

That control, Mr. President, based on monetary negotiations, is a win for the American economy, the American oil industry, and the American people.

I am honestly begging you not to be the lulled into believing that a military victory is possible without throwing hundreds of thousands of troops into the fray here; I am asking you to be that very smart, professionally shrewd man I supported for the Presidency in last November's election.

The US government's Afghanistan watchdog has urged the Pentagon to declassify a report detailing allegations of child sexual abuse by Afghan forces. The watchdog also cites the State Department as saying that the Afghan government has failed to meet human-rights standards and that Afghan officials are complicit in the sexual abuse of children by Afghan security forces.

The use of destructive weapon as such could kill several birds with one stone. It earned Donald Trump somewhat uplift in status amid disgraces whirling around White House at that time. It also played a commercial advertisement for purchasers of the US arms, in part for being over-hyped.

In an interview, an Afghan environment protection expert explained that MOAB-like bombs exposes hazardous chemicals into air that causes cancer, respiratory and digestive problems, deformities in babies, strokes, high blood pressure and weakened vision. It severely contaminates food and water that even stay afloat to affect next generation.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Mr. President, I am peacefully, and politely, putting you on notice: in my world, there is no such thing as "collateral damage."

Sir, the reality is we are talking about brother and sister human beings who have been deafened; blinded; hit with aggressive cancers and birth defects; and outright assassinated, in order to control the oil pipelines and mineral deposits in Afghanistan.

We have never had the moral high ground in this war, or at all been on the right side of history; this is why US/NATO troops have lost control of huge amounts of territory to the Taliban.

It is high time, sir, that the US and NATO bring their troops home, as quickly as is safely possible, and negotiate with whatever government left standing in Kabul for the pipeline and mineral rights.

President Donald Trump has become increasingly frustrated with his advisers tasked with crafting a new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and recently suggested firing the war's top military commander during a tense meeting at the White House, according to senior administration officials.

During the July 19 meeting, Trump repeatedly suggested that Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford replace Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, because he is not winning the war, the officials said. Trump has not met Nicholson, and the Pentagon has been considering extending his time in Afghanistan.

Former Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who earlier urged Donald Trump to appoint a US “viceroy” to win the Afghan war, has reportedly pitched up a “business proposal” to Kabul, offering a fully-fledged private air force to back the local army’s operations.

Prince, the founder and former CEO of private military company Blackwater (now rebranded Academi), has floated a business proposal offering a privately-manned “turn-key composite air wing” to the Afghan government, whose troops steadily lose ground to the Taliban, the Military Times reported on Thursday.

Prince's plan, cited by the newspaper, was reportedly submitted to the Afghans back in March. It includes providing “high speed response” as well as close-air support for Afghanistan’s army fighting the Islamists. The private air force’s fixed-wing planes, attack helicopters and drones would be flown by hired pilots, but “weapons release decisions will still be made by Afghans.”

Academi's, and Prince's "strategic thinking" (if one can call it that), has not changed, no matter how much carnage and loathing they created in Iraq.

The Afghani government needs to think very carefully about hiring anyone Prince suggests at this point in Afghanistan's history, and review their epic, and spectacular fail in Iraq.

And to President Trump, Congress, the State Department, and the Pentagon; who, please, is going to be paying for this operation?!? American taxpayers, after the extent of Blackwater's epic fail in Iraq?!?

Mr. President, and to anyone in his administration (or any of the "Alphabet Soup Agencies" who read this blog), there is no military metric by which we can characterise the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan a success, 16 years on.

This country is not called "the grave of empires" for no good reason.

The only guy who was EVER able to hold this country together, by a system of alliances and arranged marriages, was Alexander the Great; and that was only for 3 years.

Mr. President, the only intelligent thing to do now, unless you want to commit 500,000 troops to this war (which we do not, and will not have, unless you and Congress order a return of the draft), is to remove US and NATO troops from Afghanistan as quickly as safely possible, then negotiate with whatever government left standing in Kabul for the oil pipeline rights, and the mineral rights.

After all the blood and money spent here, this is the only moral, and right thing to do.

You inherited this war from your Village Idiot Predecessor, President George Bush, enabled by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, via their "magical thinking" to believe that a minimum number of troops would be all that it would take to invade and hold this country.

They were spectacularly, entirely wrong in this; and the cost in American lives, lost on the premise of a big fat lie, spun to convince the American people that this war was just, when the real goal was to control Afghani oil pipelines, has been enough, sir.

This is not your dishonor, or your failure. You simply got stuck with this.

After months of the Pentagon failing to sell a concrete plan of escalation to the White House, officials now say that the administration is considering getting back on track with a drawdown headed for a full pullout from the country after 16 years.

This is happening for the same reason the Pentagon hasn’t been able to sell the escalations, that a number of officials are unconvinced that the escalation is going to accomplish anything, and that they don’t think there’s a clear strategy for victory.

The Pentagon was more or less uniform in arguing escalations, albeit of varying sizes, and are said to be objecting to the proposed pullout as a “minority viewpoint,” warning that it does not meet the goals of the conflict.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The withdrawal of US and NATO troops, as quickly as is safely possible, is the only sane option left to the US government, coupled with negotiating with whatever "government" is left standing in Kabul for the oil pipelines and mineral rights.

After months of the Pentagon failing to sell a concrete plan of escalation to the White House, officials now say that the administration is considering getting back on track with a drawdown headed for a full pullout from the country after 16 years.

This is happening for the same reason the Pentagon hasn’t been able to sell the escalations, that a number of officials are unconvinced that the escalation is going to accomplish anything, and that they don’t think there’s a clear strategy for victory.

The Pentagon was more or less uniform in arguing escalations, albeit of varying sizes, and are said to be objecting to the proposed pullout as a “minority viewpoint,” warning that it does not meet the goals of the conflict.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This has proven an unwinnable war from the very beginning; getting out of Afghanistan, then negotiating with whatever government is left standing in Kabul for the mineral and pipeline rights, is the only logical thing to do.

With opposition parties boycotting what they call a rigged election, Reuters reports the streets of Caracas were deserted on Sunday as a minority of Venezuelans trickled to the polls to elect a constitutional super-body that unpopular leftist President Maduro vowed would begin a new era of combat in the crisis-stricken nation. That is good news as, following the death of two people yesterday, shortly after a large group of motorbikes sped through the city, and explosion hit, reportedly injuring a number of police officers.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The end game will not go well for Maduro.

I am reasonably certain that there are US-sponsored assassination teams, tracking his every move, and the moment they have a clear shot...the man is probably going to get killed.

The question is, not if... but when, and who does the US government have in the wings to replace him?!?

“Welcome!” I’d hear again and again. An invitation to enter humble homes would follow: an offer to rest, to eat, or to just drink a glass of water. ‘Why?’ I often wondered. “Why?” I finally asked my driver and interpreter, Mr. Arif, who became my dear friend. “It’s because in this country, Afghans love Russian people,” he replied simply and without any hesitation. “Afghans love Russians?” I wondered. “Do you?” “Yes,” he replied, smiling. “I do. Most of our people here do.” <...> The Russians did so much for Afghanistan: they built entire housing communities like ‘Makroyan’, they built factories, even bakeries. In places such as Kandahar, people are still eating Russian bread…” I recalled the Soviet-era water pipes that I photographed all over most of the humble Afghan countryside, as well as the elaborate water canals in and around cities like Jalalabad. “Before and during the Soviet era, there were Soviet doctors here, and also Soviet teachers.

President Trump, searching for a reason to keep the United States in Afghanistan after 16 years of war, has latched on to a prospect that tantalized previous administrations: Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth, which his advisers and Afghan officials have told him could be profitably extracted by Western companies.

Mr. Trump has discussed the country’s mineral deposits with President Ashraf Ghani, who promoted mining as an economic opportunity in one of their first conversations. Mr. Trump, who is deeply skeptical about sending more American troops to Afghanistan, has suggested that this could be one justification for the United States to stay engaged in the country.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Swell; just another damned (and possibly very specious) reason to stay in Afghanistan, because the Pentagon, State Department, Congress, and the White House, can't think of anything else to do here.

Before President Trump signs off on this, there should be an impartial mineral engineering study of those areas with supposed large mineral wealth, and a very sober, intelligent budget for doing this.

But the most important conversation to be conducted here, concerns a mechanism which insures that a reasonable portion of this wealth actually goes back to the Afghani people, rather than being simply expropriated by US companies, who have no moral right to do this, and may potentially give nothing back.

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on with the weapons because identifying markings have been removed in most instances. However, many of the guns appear to be in the style of Russian weapons like the Kalashnikov sniper rifle. That said, other weaponry and accessories observed include the JGBG M7 scope, which is made in China. It’s possible that some of these guns are indeed modeled on the Kalashnikov but aren’t actually Russian in origin, or they are indeed genuine Russian manufacture but weren’t actually distributed by Moscow.

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